BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

♠QJ 10 7 ♥ 8 ♦ AKJ62 ♣ K 10 4 You open 1 ♦ and LHO overcalls 1 ♥ . What action do you take after the next two hands pass? THIS week, I’m featuring a series of hands that have cropped up at the table in recent months and have given rise to debate and some confusion in the post-mortems.

On most, there is no ‘correct’ answer — just common sense, logic and judgment.

Here, the first question is: ‘Should you bid again or pass?’ From the information available, the answer is: ‘Yes’.

A simple overcall followed by a pass from partner suggests they have a few values, but is unable to make a sensible bid. They may have long hearts, but not strong enough to make a penalty double (we don’t use negatives).

If you decide to bid again, you should do so with a competitive double. It would be wrong to bid 1 ♠ because partner would presumably have bid spades if he had held four.

Nor should you rebid diamonds because this suggests you’re single- suited and prevents partner from showing clubs cheaply. Of course, you may have been fooled by underbidding opponents — but you can’t cater for that.